Effective Ways of Teaching English Vocabulary to Young Learners (ID:333321)

Lead-in In today's world, English is an international language. A large and growing body of literature has investigated that knowing English is a fundamental property of self-development that gives great opportunities and possibilities for the person who is interested in it. Vocabulary is a key aspect of learning any language. “Children are more enthusiastic and lively as learners. They also lose interest more quickly and are less able to keep themselves motivated on tasks they find difficult” (Cameron 2001, p. 17). “Younger learners have the advantage of being great mimics, are often unselfconscious, and are usually prepared to enjoy the activities the teacher has prepared for them” (Philips, Maley 1993, p. 5). Vocabulary knowledge in young children directly affects their later success in learning to read. Together, these studies outline that teaching vocabulary is fast becoming a key instrument in teaching foreign languages. This research topic of this paper is the effective ways of teaching English vocabulary to young learners. Much of the current literature pays particular attention to difficulties in learning foreign languages. To teach children, the teacher must understand how to do it properly and effectively and what it means to know a word. According to S. Thornbury (2002, p.15), knowing a word means: 1. Having the ability to recognize it in its spoken and written forms. 2. Knowing its different meanings. 3. Knowing its part of speech. 4. Being able to pronounce it properly. 5. Being able to use it correctly within a sentence in an appropriate grammatical form. 6. For technical words, recognizing it in context. There is a large volume of published studies describing the role of vocabulary in learning the English language to young learners. T. Hedge (2000, p.96) states that in learning a foreign language, vocabulary plays an important role. It is one of the most important aspects of foreign language learning. Rich vocabulary helps people to understand and learn new words. Adding into the learning process the effective methods of learning vocabulary will be a good decision in improving pupil's learning skills. First of all, teachers need to think about these questions: Why the young learner wants to know the words they teach? What problems can arise in the learning process and how to determine those difficulties? To answer these questions we should experiment and use the appropriate tools for clarification of the answer. My main reason for choosing this topic is personal interest. During my school experience I have noticed some problems of learning vocabulary in the 2nd and 4th forms. It may be caused by two reasons: students are not able to understand how to learn vocabulary effectively and they have little motivation to deal with it. To my mind, the solution to these two problems is to combine them. By this I mean that if a child understands how she can learn vocabulary easier and more effectively and then get good outcomes, she automatically becomes motivated. The biggest motivation for pupils is their success and teacher should be ready to direct them to achieve it. So, summarizing all of the above, I expect to explore which methods of teaching English vocabulary to young learners are the most effective.